


breathturn

by lordbirthdayxv



Category: Monsta X (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Eventual Smut, Happy Halloween I guess?, M/M, Romance, Surreal, but its a bit more complex, it was supposed to be a vampire cabinfic but oh well
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-29
Updated: 2020-10-29
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:28:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27265000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lordbirthdayxv/pseuds/lordbirthdayxv
Summary: Time is out of joint in the Athamanika mountains and Kihyun goes insane with Changkyun by his side.
Relationships: Im Changkyun | I.M/Yoo Kihyun
Comments: 6
Kudos: 17





	breathturn

**Author's Note:**

> now playing path 3 (7676) by max richter

Sweatless and clean, Kihyun glides up the slopes with a mastery beyond his ancestors and thinks _I am so weak_. Beside him, Changkyun shines sun-bright and alive and possibly disagrees. Kihyun turns his eyes to the skies and hopes for perdition to be swift.

 _Heathens_ , he thinks as they get drunk on blood in the light of the setting sun, and waits impatiently for night to come. His companions exchange stories that are not their own and talk about silly things. Hyunwoo laughs and then Minhyuk and suddenly everyone is laughing and Kihyun feels himself thrown out of the loop. _What are you laughing at? They can hear us_. He looks behind him and above the needlepoints of black trees, the blue of distant snow gleams with its malicious light. They are far away but he knows they are listening, biding their time. It is not every day that creatures like them leave themselves open to such scrutiny. The mountains surround them like stone sentries and Kihyun wants to tell Hyunwoo to pack up and leave and abandon the idea of a retreat because nature is no friend of theirs.

“You’re slipping,” Changkyun leans over and whispers and Kihyun finds he has spilled some of his drink on the grass. He watches in terrified fascination as it scorches the ground where it falls. Changkyun notices and takes his mug away. 

“Doesn’t it feel like something watches you up here?” 

It is the second night and they are convened around the fireplace inside. The flames crackle and spit, unimpressed by their poor mockery of a half-forgotten human act. _They are watching you now and they despise you_ Kihyun wants to tell Minhyuk but does not dare say it out loud. He is afraid of drawing their attention, afraid of being singled out and made to suffer for his awareness. 

Changkyun says he has a story and Kihyun thinks they are finally safe. Except, he tells the story of a god, lonely and uncreative, who draws the shape of the moon because it is an easy thing to imagine. By its light, he makes beautiful creatures that dwell in darkness until inspiration strikes and the god makes the sun. Kihyun listens, horrified, as the sun people banish the moon people and take the earth until time flips the hourglass and the age of the moon returns. And never ends. 

Copper climbs back up Kihyun’s throat. _They know_. But Changkyun appears unfazed and for the millionth time in years, Kihyun thinks if he is insane after all. 

The house is a summer home but it is not summer and in the end it does not matter in the least because seasons are a human delight. Kihyun walks the hallways as the beastly sounds of his friends settling in surround him. He thinks himself a monster then, a pale, bloodless monster, walking the halls of a man’s home. There is a painting in the living room and Changkyun stands underneath it, a specter bathed in firelight. 

“Is this what they thought of us?”

The giant stares, caught in the act and in his eyes is helpless terror. Kihyun shakes his head.

“We never feared them.”

“But don’t you see?” Changkyun gazes up with reverence in his eyes. “It is the light.”

“Not anymore.” _And what does that make you and me?_

Cronus, having transgressed already, has no answer.

_Time is strange here_ , Kihyun thinks as the night sky outside his window blinks innocently, its eyes studded with stars. He lies in his bed and names a star his own and watches it until his eyes dry up. Hundreds of years ago, someone had stared at the same star but their eyes had watered, their humanity wet and fecund in their bones. A dead ball of dust connects Kihyun’s cold body with their warmth and for a split second, all is right in the world. But soon, the star disappears and the universe reminds him that he is a dead man walking on the wrong side of the earth and rejected by both.

He sleeps for the first time in decades. 

Afterwards, wakefulness blooms like panic in his chest and he knows he is alone. Rain falls in misty sheets and soaks the grey land outside his window, and silence reigns in the house of the dead, except it is unearthly and chills Kihyun to the bone. He flies in a frenzy from room to room and finds himself alone, signs everywhere but punctuated by the white of absence. _Time is strange here_ , he thinks and this time, he thinks it with the doomed certainty of a man aboard a sinking ship.

The universe does him a strange kindness then. 

Changkyun stands in the entrance, water dripping from his clothes, and confusion rooted in his eyes.

“They’re gone.”

Kihyun closes his eyes and sinks to the floor. Changkyun stares at him with some trepidation.

“Are they coming back?”

And the rain, falling steadily outside, tells them a soft _no_.

For a long time afterwards, Changkyun waits but Kihyun does not speak. He moves through the rooms, aimless and ghostlike, waiting for minutes to slips into hours, and hours into days. An irrational voice at the back of his head wants him to pray but he fears offending the gods that listen in. Changkyun, young and impatient, is much too practical.

“I’m leaving.”

Kihyun peels his eyes away from the rain and looks at him. He is fully dressed, his backpack on his shoulders, determination shining on his brow. 

“Where will you go?”

“The woods. I’m going to look for them.”

A beat. Kihyun observes the boy in front of him and wonders what would compel him to want to do that.

“You won’t find them.”

Changkyun bristles. “Even if I don’t, I need answers. I can’t sit here and stare at walls all day.” He reaches out a hand. “Get your things, go on.”

Kihyun ignores his hand and shakes his head. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“Kihyun, I’m not leaving you here alone, it’s not safe-”

“Yes,” Kihyun murmurs, “it’s not safe.”

“Then come with me.”

“No.”

Changkyun stares at him incredulously before letting out a curse and storming out the door, leaving an angry promise of return in his wake. 

The clocks in the house stop working and Kihyun wonders how long Changkyun has been gone. Outside, the sky is unchanged and rain falls almost soundlessly. His throat has begun to burn which is impossible. _Didn’t I drink last night?_ He sits very still on his bed, willing the hunger to go away but it only grows, a supernova of need in his empty veins. He crawls on his hands and knees to the kitchen and flings open the refrigerator that has long ceased to work. His fangs puncture holes into two bags at once and it feels like ice on a burn. Red dribbles down his chin and pools in the hollow of his throat. 

The door slams outside and Changkyun wanders in, dazed and soaking wet. They look at each other, Kihyun a sated wild animal bathed in red, and Changkyun wild-eyed and lost.

“I’ve been running in circles,” he breathes but Kihyun already knows. Opens his arms and Changkyun falls forward into them, tongue lapping hungrily at the blood painting Kihyun’s skin. He dives into the well of plenty at Kihyun’s neck and Kihyun shivers uncontrollably as he licks him clean. Afterwards, he holds Changkyun against him as he sobs and tells him what the mountain has done to him.

“It won’t let me leave,” he chokes out and Kihyun runs his fingers through his damp hair and whispers nonsense platitudes in his ears.

“Why do you think he looks like that?”

“Like what?”

“Like he is ashamed?”

Kihyun looks at the painting and shrugs. “Maybe he is.”

“But why?”

Changkyun is curled up in a ball on the rug in front of the fire that never seems to burn out. Kihyun does not remember the last time he had fed it wood. Who had started it to begin with? He thinks of Changkyun’s question instead.

“Because he is caught.”

“Do you think he wouldn’t look like that if he hadn’t been discovered?”

“Perhaps.”

Cronus looks satisfied, his morsel tucked safely away in his mouth. Changkyun hums.

“How long do you think it’s been?”

“Days. Maybe weeks.” He looks down at his hands and they are clean as marble. There should be purple veins spreading treelike underneath his skin. They have long since exhausted their store of blood but neither of them has been hungry for what feels like months now. Kihyun wonders in awe what it means.

“Kihyun?” Changkyun’s voice is soft and pitiful. He looks like a child. 

“Yes?”

“Are we trapped?”

Kihyun steals a glance out the window at the sameness. If he listens closely, he can hear the soft song of the rain and it answers all his useless questions with the patience of a long-suffering mother. _Yes_ , it sings, _yes you are, don’t you know your time will come?_

Kihyun turns away from it and stares into the fire, refusing to answer. 

He falls asleep and in his dreams, he is an old man, bent and yellowed with age. He chases a white rabbit named death and laughs at the straightforwardness of his desires. Sleep comes, quick and unbidden even in his dream, and he collapses on sand that runs against gravity and swallows his body whole in its golden depths. He watches himself be devoured and beats his fists against glass.

“Tell me a story,” he says suddenly and Changkyun looks up, startled. For a long time now, they have sat in silence and stared at all the different walls in the house and Kihyun can feel the last threads of sanity breaking behind his eyes. His companion sits next to him, observing a wall painted buttercup yellow. 

“What kind of story?”

“Any story. Talk to me so I know you are real.”

Changkyun swallows and looks back at the wall. Kihyun, growing impatient, takes his hand.

“Tell me why it keeps raining.”

A pause. Then: “It's mourning the sky.”

“What killed it?”

“You know this.”

“What killed it?”

Changkyun’s eyes bore into his. “Time,” he says.

“Why?”

“Because everything must die one day.”

Another, longer pause. “Then where does that leave you and me?”

Changkyun moves closer and puts his lips by Kihyun’s ear. 

“I think we’re going to live forever.”

And it is so lovely, so tantalizing a thought, but the rain goes on insisting _no, no, no, no…_

There is a shimmering veil that shrouds Changkyun wherever he goes and it looks like death but of the most peculiar kind. It makes Kihyun want to lay him down and pray over his body, pray for his damned soul, and Kihyun can feel his tongue shrivel and curl like burning paper with just the thought of such blasphemy. Creatures of the night, they have learned to walk by the light of the sun but there is much to be desired yet. 

Changkyun, sweet, lonely, only boy in the world, goes about, blissfully unaware. 

It comes as no surprise when he lets the eternal fire in the grate catch on to his sleeve and waits for it to burn him to ashes but it never does. Try as he might, it refuses to do what it does best. He slumps on the floor and tries to light his pyre once more and fails. 

“What do you think you’re doing?”

Changkyun is standing in the doorway, looking at him with a mixture of horror and fascination. 

“I can’t die,” Kihyun says. Thrusts his arm into the fire and watches as it licks at his skin but refuses to burn. Changkyun comes forward, awe in his wide eyes.

“Why won’t it let us die?” he whispers, taking Kihyun’s arm and staring at it. His voice quivers. “Everything must die so why can’t we?”

Kihyun pulls him close and tucks his face in the crook of his neck. 

Years flee from them like thieves and the two of them finally venture outside. They are soaked instantly and Kihyun blinks rainwater out of his eyes as he walks barefoot in the mud toward a distant tree overlooking a cliff edge. A wide gorge yawns below, its gaping maw filled with a dense fog that obscures its bottom and swirls as if alive. Far, too far away, the green mountains watch silently, mist rolling down their slopes. From this distance, the rain looks like a fine spray of grey falling from the split open sky. 

Kihyun looks over his shoulder and a terrible pain clenches his cold heart. The boy stands with his eyes closed, his arms spread by his side, and he looks pure, as if he has been washed clean of his sins. _One of us is freed. I’m glad it’s you_.

Changkyun looks at him then, and Kihyun stares transfixed as rivers of rain weave a gentle path down his forehead, dropping like pearls from the eaves of his eyelashes and disappearing down the column of his neck. _Kihyun_ , he says and his arms are held out in front of him now and what can Kihyun do but move, entranced, and fold himself into his embrace. They stand there, seeking meagre comfort in each other as above them, the sky bleeds to death. 

“Take me inside,” Kihyun whispers, and Changkyun hitches him up against him and carries him into the house on the hill. _The last house in the world_ , Kihyun thinks and gratitude warms his freezing cold skin. _Thank you_.

Changkyun lays him down on the rug in front of the fire and places a palm on his cheek.

“What can we do?” and his voice is a whisper of wind among the trees. Outside, rain falls against the windowpane and waits for Kihyun to answer. 

Kihyun leans up and presses his open mouth to Changkyun’s cheek and tries to form words. 

“Kiss me,” he says feverishly. And so Changkyun leans down and obeys, his lips cold and soft and Kihyun cannot hold back the anguished noise he makes, desperation and loneliness bundled tight in its layers. Changkyun pulls him up and into his lap, his arms holding him securely as his tongue sweeps gently into Kihyun’s mouth. He pulls away for a fraction of a second and in his eyes is want and something more, years and years of sorrow that Kihyun cannot fathom. 

“All I have is you,” he says and Kihyun hates it because it is true.

“We’ll make the most of it,” Kihyun says and the rain, its ear pressed tight against the walls, laughs. “We’ll make the most of it,” he says again and dives back into Changkyun’s mouth.

 _For now, we swim together, down melancholy’s rapids_.

“Did I ever tell you what happened to the moon people?” 

Changkyun lies in his bed, his body pressed against Kihyun’s side and his breath warm on Kihyun’s neck. Centuries have passed. Or perhaps it has been days.

“What happened to them?”

“They dried up.”

Kihyun laughs, a strange, alien sound and Changkyun lifts his head and stares in wonder for a moment.

“But it’s true. All that remained of them was desiccated husks.”

“What became of the husks?”

“Nobody knows. But a poet once told me that they became the earth. Its salt and its silt.”

“That’s an interesting story. But poets lie.”

“Do they?”

“A man said that once.”

“Maybe he lied.”

“Maybe he did. They often lied.”

“We lie too. Like we are lying to each other right now.”

Kihyun rubs the pad of his thumb against his cheekbone and says softly, “Why would I lie to you?”

“Because I would never know it from the truth.”

Kihyun nudges his face up and kisses him. It is a thing he can do now. _What strange economy of this lost world_ , he thinks with wonder and deepens the kiss. Changkyun moans low, sweet music in response. _I give you my mouth and let you deal in absolutes for as long as it lasts._

Kihyun dreams again and this time Changkyun is there too. But it is all wrong because he is naked and milky-eyed, strung up against the grey sky with ropes of never-ending rain. Kihyun, locked in a gilded cage made of hours, stares helplessly as the sun emerges from the cradle of clouds and blisters Changkyun’s honey skin. Watches with abject horror as pieces of Changkyun fall like ash from the sky, his voice whispering a name that sounds like heresy and salvation all at once. _Kihyun, Kihyun, Kihyun..._

When he wakes up Changkyun is not next to him. Kihyun’s chest thumps with hollow fear as he rushes down the hallway screaming the boy’s name. He finds him outside, on his knees in the mud, staring sightlessly at the sky. Kihyun shakes him and he jerks as if shocked. Blinks at Kihyun like he does not recognize him.

“How long has it been?” he asks and Kihyun breathes, relieved, because he can answer this.

“Months, maybe years.”

Changkyun nods and clings to Kihyun like a tired child. “Help me feel better.”

So Kihyun carries him inside and holds him in his bed. Sings him a forgotten song in a dead language until his breathing evens out and his grip on Kihyun slackens.

“Tell me a story.”

“I don’t know any stories.”

“Then speak to me of time.”

“I'm not supposed to.”

“Are you afraid?”

“Aren’t you?” 

Changkyun hums thoughtfully.

“Maybe a little. But that comes later.”

Kihyun buries his nose in his hair and breathes him in. He smells like the forest, of snow and rain.

“What comes now?”

“Whatever it is, we make the most of it,” Changkyun says, looking up, “you and I until the clams yawn again.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means we will die, but not today. Or tomorrow. Or in a thousand years.”

He noses at Kihyun’s neck, his hands skipping feather light over his skin. Kihyun shivers.

“We will die, but for now, there is no wakefulness as deep.”

“Do you remember the people we came here with?”

Changkyun gives him a look. “We have always lived here, Kihyun.”

Kihyun tries to calm his breathing so he can speak. “We came here,” he says hoarsely, “on a trip. With friends,” _their names escape me_ but he does not say that. Changkyun is still looking at him strangely. 

He takes Kihyun’s hands and kisses them. Speaks gently, as if to a child. “There is nothing here yet, Kihyun.”

And Kihyun knows but somehow it feels wrong when Changkyun says it like that. Like they have been lifted out of their inertia and dropped at the beginning again.

“How long has it been?” Kihyun asks and Changkyun smiles.

“Darling,” he croons, “It has not yet begun.”

He takes Kihyun’s hand in his and pulls him to his chest. Dazed, Kihyun falls into his embrace and feels everything melt away. Names drop like ripe fruit from his mind until it is wiped clean and all he can see and feel and breathe is Changkyun, who smiles a brilliant smile that contains within it the secret of life.

“Time falls like rain for us and our kind,” Changkyun whispers in his ear and it makes perfect sense somehow.

“Tell me then,” he asks Kihyun, “who are you?”

And Kihyun knows, all doubts banished from his mind.

“A witness.”

He blinks and feels himself gently lowered on to something soft and realizes it is a damp carpet of moss, tickling his naked skin as rain falls gently and bounces on its surface. Changkyun is gazing down at him with all the love in the world coalesced in his eyes. Kihyun feels something like a heart beat in his chest, warm and quick, and it skips a few beats when Changkyun trails the backs of his fingers tenderly along his cheek.

“I have always loved you,” he whispers with a new, clean reverence in his voice. Kihyun blinks in amazement.

“Have you?”

“How could I not? I was made for you.”

He kisses the wonder out of Kihyun, rolls it between his tongue and swallows it whole. Kihyun chases the heat of his mouth and finds that it tastes like nothing because there is nothing yet to compare it with. A whisper-thin string of saliva connects their lips as Changkyun pulls away to look at him and Kihyun feels something like hunger pinch the back of his throat. He wants. And he wants this boy. 

It is not enough, so Kihyun flips them over and Changkyun lies golden and plaint beneath him. _They will build monuments to you_ , he thinks as he lays his palms flat against wet skin, _eons from now, they will remember your loveliness and sing it in songs that will pass from one mouth to the next until death claims them all._

“But you will never die,” he says into the skin of Changkyun’s stomach, “you will live like time.”

Music, Beautiful and wild, spills from Changkyun’s lips as Kihyun takes him in his mouth. He whimpers, calls Kihyun’s name and it feels like being baptized in a sea of primordial godliness. The mountains sing the song of the rain as the valley fills with water and becomes heavy with it, its pregnant lap bountiful and green.

“Oh I love you, I love you, I will always love you,” he kisses Changkyun because he finds he needs it like he needs air and Changkyun is, blessed sweet boy, a giver. 

“Take me,” he weeps, “take me, please, _please_ -”

So Kihyun does. Holds him like a raindrop on the back of his hand and makes love to him until he is a sobbing, incoherent mess, Kihyun’s name mingling with needy whimpers until words dissolve into their smallest units and wash away with the rain. Kihyun gives himself to Changkyun in a time-worn tableau that he thinks he has rehearsed his entire life and Changkyun moans as if his sweet mouth was made to say one thing alone. Kihyun spills his release inside him and feels euphoria clog his mind and body as the sky breaks open completely and a great, golden sun bursts forth, its light a deluge that floods the world. Kihyun smiles at Changkyun and he smiles back and they know it is time.

They kiss, bruised lips numbing themselves with love as the sun seeps into their skins and cleans them from the inside out. Kihyun brushes Changkyun’s hair away from his face and burns his beauty against the backs of his eyes.

“I shall see you,” he whispers as he bakes in the sun, falls apart in its heat, “I shall love you until then.”

And Changkyun cries out with pain and joy and kisses Kihyun one last time before he too, becomes the dust of beginnings.

Pieces of them mix together and fall slowly and mildly into a deep green sea.

Waiting.

Centuries later someone passes by and hooks a bait to a line. They fish. 

Foam rises to the top.

Clusters of clam yawn and Venus is born again.

**Author's Note:**

> find me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/ajghar1)


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